[Talk-us] Address Standard

[Kevin Atkinson]

On Fri, 13 Aug 2010, Steven Johnson wrote:

> If you want to see the mother of all street naming trainwrecks, have a look
> at Hickory, NC. Story goes that sometime back in the '30's, the city
> fathers/mothers thought they would rationalize street naming. But what makes
> sense on gridded streets makes an *awful* mnemonic device for wayfinding,
> especially in the hilly, western piedmont of NC. You also have some really
> perverse examples of streetnaming, like "19th Ave Pl NW".

Thanks for the other data point.  In case I didn't make it already clear 
in my other emails, what I am saying is that maybe always displaying the 
directionals is not always the best way to present them.  I do not know 
what the correct solution is.  However, I am not advocating the complete 
suppression except in limited cases.  For example, when the directional is 
more of a positive/negative for an address than specifying a region of the 
city, such as the case in Salt Lake City.  The decision to suppress 
directionals in this limited case should be evaluated on a city by city 
bases and by those who are familiar with the area.

> Rather than look to paper maps and Google for how they map it, it may be
> more useful to look at how local E911 services and USPS treat these
> addresses.

That is not going to help, what is at issue here (at least for me) is what 
should be displayed as part of the street name of a map.  Not what goes 
into the address.

> There are times when a street type (e.g. Ave, St, Ln, Pl) is part
> of the name (e.g. 19th Ave Pl NW, where "Ave" is part of the street name)
> and times when the directional prefix/suffix (e.g. N, S, E W) are part of
> the street name (e.g. "North Temple"). I think only local knowledge is the
> way to resolve these issues.

Yes local knowledge is the only way to resolve it.